


feel want, taste grief, need friends

by for_within_the_hollow_crown



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Leo Fitz & Jemma Simmons (mentioned) - Freeform, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons (mentioned) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 15:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11854839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_within_the_hollow_crown/pseuds/for_within_the_hollow_crown
Summary: August nineteen, the day is marked by two anniversaries only one of which is talked about. It’s Fitz’s birthday and exactly three months since the activation of the monolith.





	feel want, taste grief, need friends

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Team Engineering's Fitz Birthday Project: The Fitz Wish List. 
> 
> Unbeta'd.

Outside the storm is breaking out in all its intensity and violence, the peacefulness and tranquillity of earlier that day are being replaced at once by motion and dynamicity - nature in all its power. Thunder is rolling and rumbling. Getting louder and louder the closer it gets, it interrupts the silence that still lingers in the air and mixes with the gusts of wind that blow through the streets, howling. It causes the branches of the trees that are planted on either sides of the main roads to move: they rasp and rattle against the brick or cement walls of the buildings at their side, adding up to the sounds of rustling leaves - a never ending waving of greens and yellows. Thin sticks, not longer than four inches, break, silently fall down onto the pavement and remain there still; blown away occasionally, they never get far from the point of impact.

But for nature, the only thing that appears alive, there's complete stillness and the world outside seems empty and asleep. Some lonely cars drive by in the street, almost lazily, past traffic lights and crossings, but there aren't any walkers. No dogs either, wiggling their tails and sniffling at lampposts, with the bright and colourful harnesses and leashes, and no children, whose laughter- joyous, carefree and innocent - can sometimes be heard as it lifts itself into the air along with their babbling, playing in the park at the end of the road. The slides are deserted and the empty swings move back in the wind, screeching in their movements.

There's rain too. Up until lunch it was nothing but a drizzle, the water evaporating before having the chance to reach the ground, leaving the pavement as dry as ever and causing the humidity to increase even further, thus making the temperatures to feel hotter. Now, however, it hits hard against every surface but only the sound of the rain drops against windows is audible from inside - clack, clack, clack, a rhythmical and relaxing sound. Once on the glass, the droplets of water silently run down on the cold and smooth surfaces, before gathering on windowsills or balconies and continuing their journey towards the ground. On the edge, they fall onto the street, adding up to the wetness that is there already. Some of them end in puddles on the side of the road whose water is splashed back onto the sidewalks by cars who drive by, some end on the grass, the green grass blades dirty with mud.

Meanwhile, the late afternoon air is cut by lightning - irregular and branched lines on a dark horizon. The white light explodes and illuminates the top of the buildings that gloomily and bleakly tower themselves against a sky that is painted black. The clouds that have slowly gathered throughout the day, maintaining clearance enough to put in doubt whether or not the storm would actually happen, are now a thick and heavy mass, shades of grey unevenly mixing together in a breathtaking scenery. The outlines of the roofs and the antennas are all revealed for a matter of seconds before darkness succumbs once more.

The light of the lightening also filters through curtains and Venetian blinds equally and adds up to the artificial and yellowish light that comes from light bulbs. All sorts of places. There's children playing on the floor, alone or with their parents or siblings. Someone sitting on the toilet, phone in their hands. Some are sitting alone at the kitchen table, the television on and the loud volume coming through the speakers. A pair of first time lovers is stumbling towards the bedroom, all fumbling hands and short breaths, laughter in their throats as they stop and kiss. Five friends in a bedroom singing along to an old tune, the enthusiasm and elation that the others' company provides both make up for the lack of talent.

But there's empty rooms too, with furniture that has remained untouched for months and dust gathering on every surface. Lonely photographs hang on the walls, held up by tape that is just starting to lose its strength and turn grey; one of the corners of the one that was taken in Peru has already fallen off and lies there, millimetres away from the wall. Everything in there remains untouched and unaltered including the pictures that are looked at with sadness and desperations, fingers outlining the images; only the laptop on the desk has been touched in order to disconnect it and turn it off so as not to ruin the battery, both things have been done with the utmost care in an attempt not to leave anything different than it was before. It is, however, still open and the post-its that once were on either top-corners of the screen have long fallen down and are now under the cupboard - the paper ruined, the edges crumpled, the sticky stripe at the back filled with dust and the ink slowly fading away: it's forgotten messages, to-do lists that never had a chance to be nor will ever be fulfilled.

The empty room, ready for the return of its owner, appears as frozen in time as the others appear alive, and oozes off desolation and abandonment. If one were to reduce the world to that room, make it a microcosm neatly delineated by four walls, then the return of its proprietary would bring alone a return to life, an awakening, a state of being. There would be nothing else beside that place, nothing else with which to make a comparison, nothing else to reveal that everything that comes down to those four walls and everything in it is left behind - time doesn't pass there nor does life go on. If the world were to come down to that room alone, then nothing would appear out of the ordinary and the pretence that Jemma Simmons is to be back soon would still stand unaltered - nothing in it to properly and accurately signal the passing of time. With the passing of time not so quite obvious, all possibilities are possible and no sense of closure would come from them: she could walk in, smiling, to change her clothes and grab her coat before making her way down the hallway; she could come back from a visit to her parents, suitcase in her hand. All of these scenarios, not reduced to one single truth, would imply that the moment Jemma's feet touch the floor past her door, life would resume as if nothing ever happened in first place.

In the same building there's also another room, that is itself a microcosm and is filled with contradictions and dualities - it's alive and not so, and appears complete when with a closer look it's easy to notice that there's something missing as if the arrangement had been left unfinished in a rush and later forgotten. This one is packed with people, there's not many of them but the space is too small especially between the table, the kitchen counter and the fridge so they all stand or sit there unevenly, not yet sure of the position they want to settle for. Shield's kitchen, Bobbi Morse is sitting on a chair next to Leo Fitz, her crutches are lying on the floor, black on the light grey marble surface. Lance Hunter stands behind her with a hand protectively or reassuringly placed on her shoulder, caressing the fabric of her t-shirt with his thumb - every movement creates folds until it's done backwards and they're flatted out again. Who else? Alphonso Mackenzie beside Bobbi, inquiringly looks at Fitz, his face like everyone else's doesn't give away any emotion. Daisy Johnson walking in, followed by Phil Coulson and Melinda May - long strides and a fast pace, a small and ruined plastic bag in her hand which she drops on the table without too many ceremonies, causing the material to drop and raise and falling down again in complete silence. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Nothing out of the ordinary, complete, until everyone takes place or at least stands behind the spot they'll be sitting on and an empty chair, unmoved and still pushed under the table, is revealed. Everything is occupied, that itself is enough to create a contrast and prevent the detail to go unnoticed but it never does, the best that happens is that it's tuned down. It's the best spot because it faces the window and even in a sitting position one can see the skyline of the city that extends itself as far as the eye can see. It's a sharp detail even in those days when it feels like walking through a quagmire, when life is all out of focus and blurry. It's a reminder that things are not a whole and something is always missing. An empty chair equals the result of tragedy having struck again, the presence of it lingers in the air and never leaves. Looking at it now, one would never imagined that there was a time, at the very beginning, when rows for that place have taken place - the view idealized and sweetly longed for after a day of work; but those time are distant and long gone, unrecognizable, they feel belonging to some other people. It's there for anyone to take, no rows and no sulky faces - lower lips protruded and corners of mouths moved down - but there's a feeling of wrongness at the mere thought of it, of not belonging, that causes the place to go unused as everyone can't or won't even dare to touch it.

August nineteen, the day is marked by two different anniversaries only one of which is talked about: it's Fitz's birthday and exactly three months since the activation of the monolith. The two events are on opposite sides of a scale of feelings and seem to balance each other out, reducing everything to an apparent state of neutrality no one can escape. In reality, feelings are all but neutral and run wild under  polished and tranquil surfaces. Hurt and shock are still there and are either drifting towards surrender and above all indifference, or are multiplying and expanding beyond possible. Stretching out, they fill minds leaving little if no space for any other thought or worry; it's a dangerous territory that with the evolving speed is only bound to increase until allowing irrationality and unwiseness to win. The real extent of it, although partly guessable, seems too far away for it being a worry and belongs to a misty future that is never thought about.

And that chair on the right side of the table, pushed under it, backrest close to the wooden edge, is an inescapable reminder that no longer holds any space for pretences. Jemma isn't there. But all things considered it goes further back than that and adds up until it creates a complete picture that, when all its details are revealed and put together, leaves no space for anything but the truth. There's no text messages wishing Fitz a happy birthday, a continuation of a long established routine for which they had to be the first to wish the other another year with all the best that life could bring. There's no phone calls with _I love you_ -s and _I wish I was there_ -s made from across time zones. There's complete radio silence and holes that can never be properly filled. There's a situation filled with changes brought to the extreme, exaggerate even for their standards, that puts a whole new light on the concept of not spending the days together.

The whole ordeal bears an aura of mystery and unknown: it's all darkness, no details and no clues. It is unknowable and not thought about it for the day - everyone does it differently, pushing to the side all sorts of matters all correlated to the events leading up to that night, but it still plays in the background, unforgotten. The focus inevitably therefore lands on the birthday; life goes on, despite wishes of it not being so, and traditions still stand so everyone puts an extra amount of effort into it, feeling as if they owe it to the team and themselves and paying attention not to cross the line of actions being forced but still wandering close to it. Sitting together in the kitchen is the most obvious thing and perhaps the one that would have happened anyway for sure, but there's more: Mack offering to play a video game and not saying anything as Fitz chose to play his favourite, the one they've already finished, without even looking at the small pile of new games still in their shiny and unopened boxes. The volume too loud and no one complaining, blasting through the speakers and filling the air in the common room, in an attempt to make it seem as if conversation cannot be made and lying on the idea that words are not necessary - being there is enough.  Daisy ungallantly falling in the space between them after having requested to the two of them to scoot to the sides, landing with a thud - the sudden motion almost making Fitz lose the grip on his joystick.

The words _hey, we all miss her and it's gonna be alright_ aren't spoken either, when usually they move from mouth to mouth through the corridors, as if an important part of the daily routine. They sound different than they did at the beginning - there's less certainty that has a clear reflection in the unsteady voices, and the last two syllables come out broken, their articulation not linear with too many and too long pauses between one sound and the next. It's the speaker gathering courage to finish and get to end, considering to just leave it there without further mentioning but not quite managing too. They don't believe in it anymore, but at the same time the simple sentences sounds like a spell that has be uttered to keep the hope alive as their minds completely drift to the opposite direction. The articulation of phonemes sounds as fake to the speaker as to the receiver and the cadence, imperceptible to a first time hearer, stands out to those who use it. It takes one to recognize and Fitz recognizes his own.

Fitz likes to imagine or fool himself, for the line between the two things is always thin and blurred and relies on subjective points of view, that he'd feel it if Jemma died - an ache in the chest, the feeling of someone walking over his grave, cold. Disillusion, he thinks, will eventually settle in and he'll perhaps realize that they have always given themselves too much importance - nothing could happen to them, they were FitzSimmons - lacking the realisation that they stood in an uncaring universe and such tales and premonitions, used for drama and empathy, belonged entirely to fiction. It matters little, however, that it's unlikely that a connection through space and time actually exists when it's the one thing that keeps him going; lies stand in front of lack of information and he makes the indecisiveness his own, an important part of his persona and life, a sweet feeling coming from the idea that they've not yet run out of time.

Jemma is alive. Fitz pronounces the first noun with fondness as if it's his favourite word, lingering on each syllable as if savouring it and in the meanwhile thinking what a grand and glorious thing it is to have met all those years ago and to actually have become friends when the chances of it not happening were the same. There's a depth into it that seems to reveal private history and blossoming feelings of love, and there's softness despite the voiced palato-alveolar affricate that opens with a plosive only to fade into a fricative - the air coming out in a slower period of friction. The verb is always said quickly and with conviction, the tongue moves with one fluid movement from high front towards the alveolar ridge. It's short and the pause that follows is always longer, almost as if to compensate. Silence filled with indecisiveness. Jemma is - something. Alive is the only options that is spoken out loud, but it would be a mistake to presume that it's the only one considered; all the possibilities run in Fitz's head , as much as in everyone else's, like a lottery - a whirl of adjectives that never stops, spinning and spinning in a circular movement.

Jemma is alive. It's a sentence as familiar as the sounds and the tongue movements that articulate them, and it comes out in daylight or dark rooms in nothing but a whisper. Ordinary, well-known, it is something that Fitz holds on to with desperation and something that leaves him awake at night, staring at the ceiling with an empty feeling in his heart that mixes with both helplessness and loss. And it's only then, in the darkness of his room - lying supine on his bed, sheets yet to be tangled, the only source of light the blue digits of his alarm clock - that Fitz allows himself to properly think about the situation and admit that there really is no progress.

They are stumbling in the dark with no way out and no clues. The situation, that after three months lacks as many details as it did at the beginning, is shaped as nothing but a mess and an entanglement of memories and feelings. The roads that could lead to some information about the portal all lead nowhere and gather in a pile - the only remaining a list of emails, internet history, and train tickets. It's moving in circles and finding one piece of information after the other, put together they don't add up but contradict the ones that were discovered before - square one their permanent position. Three months are a long position to stay there because it equals to three months of nothing, of no steps in any clear direction, and the feeling of time painfully being slowed down: seconds feel like weeks and stretch themselves towards infinity, a lifetime passing between one moment and the next, precious time ticked away by the clock in the lab.

Time doesn't seem to pass, they have no lead, and Phil Coulson is losing his patience and interest on the matter. It's hidden but there in the way he stops indulging Fitz in everything, saying no with a firm voice and a tone that leave no space for arguments or counterarguments that he refuses to listen just as much as Fitz refuses to accept no as an answer. Words wash over them both like water on a duck's back and causes them to raise their voices, dangerously close to have shouting matches down in Coulson's office - their voices rising and rising, filtering through the glass door and echoing down the corridor, there for unfortunate agents who know nothing about the matter to listen, pacing fastening in embarrassment. Both sides are equally valid and entitled in their opinions: hope is all there is and they can't leave Jemma wherever she is, give up without even trying to get her back, but it's also drain of resources and it's not about stopping the following day, but starting to consider that Jemma might be dead as an option.

It's been three months, the words are muttered on all sides with different meanings that come down to the opposition between long and short. Three months is nothing much at all, it could be five as it could be years, but in the meanwhile life has moved on and nothing is the same as it was three months earlier. Late spring, with the air smelling of flowers and upcoming summer, have been replaced by the first rain of the season - petricor filling the air. The summer heat nothing but a shadow, a prediction on evening whether forecasts that had yet to come true as the numbers passed from mouth to mouth and spread like wildflower, changing ever so slightly for emphasis, has come and gone: sleeping in ones underwear is no longer an option and a duvet is needed in addition to a t-shirt, sweat is no longer gathering on foreheads and running down on skin with a ticklish sensation. Three months of the sun rising and setting, of the city changing ever so slightly in its details - the grass yellower, a road fixed, new swings in the park, a new shop. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime sometimes it doesn't - Fitz's opinion, mostly, oscillates between the two like a pendulum without ever setting for one side or the other.

"Alright, Turbo," says Mack and everyone turns so as to look at him - heads moving almost in synch, Daisy's fringe lands in front of her eyes and she brushes it away with one quick movement. They study him with curiosity and envy, speaking first requiring more courage than imagined and breaking the fine equilibrium that had created itself upon them all walking in with a term of endearment  seemed like a leap. The comforting silence is over and reality settles back in, detaching them all from their private pains and thoughts, no longer isolated in their worries. "We've got you cake."

"And a bottle of Prosecco," Hunter adds jokingly. "And apple juice for those who don't drink."

"Thoughtful," Daisy replies.

Fitz smiles and looks at them all, the friends he's always wanted and needed. He wants to say _thank you_ and the words are on the tip of his tongue, ready to be spoken; he can picture himself doing so, starting from the voiceless dental fricative, moving on to the open front unrounded vowel, the nasal and the rest of the phonemes that follow - the short sentence coming out loud and clear -, but all that comes out is a dry _you shouldn't have_. It comes out circumstantially and full of false modesty, an attempt to give himself less importance than he thinks he has - childhood experiences still influencing his actions. 

"Of course we should have." Bobbi smiles and takes Fitz's hand. She moves hers slowly and the distance, not wider than a couple of inches, takes a couple of seconds to be filled. The table cloth crumples at the movement, near the sides of Bobbi's arm, and the little folds together with the game of shadows they create, are studied with great care.

Fitz smiles back, lips pressed together in a thin red line. It doesn't reach his eyes, but there's tenderness in it that filters through and prevents it to come off as cold and self-righteous.

Sixty one days -ish really passed, he thinks in bewilderment as his gaze drifts away and lands on the empty chair again. What could have happened instead of Jemma being swept away? And where would they be now? For one, Fitz is sure, pasts and personalities would no longer stand in the way, now would history and fear. They'd be friends, if not best friends in the world, with all past issues talked out and able to stand in the same room without their eyes tearing up and their voices breaking, backed up by made up plans just to have a chance to escape the other person and their own past, in an avoidance of confrontation. What else could they be? They could be more. The thought of it is less fascinating and tantalizing than the first option, perhaps even less wanted, and yet it's not unreasonable to presume that they could have found themselves at the very beginning of the in-between state of friendship and love, all made of exploration and stretching of boundaries delineated by their own desires. At this point Fitz can say one thing without hesitating or having to think about it: he just wants his best friend back.

Mack walks towards the fridge. It goes unnoticed at first, but then he opens the fridge's door and everyone's attention drifts back to him. Movements look and are familiar but there's something alien and foreign to them that has a mesmerizing effect - a hand around the chromed handle, a bent elbow, muscles flexing, the door opening with a clack.

The light shines through, dim in the penumbra of the kitchen, and the outlines of the fridge's content are revealed dark outlines against the light . the top of water bottles, cheese. Vegetables still in their plastic bags, with their figures distorted and blurred, have all been pushed to the side, one next to the other, so as to make space for the still closed cake box with its yellow paper and red and white writing on it. And there it is in Mack's hands, one holding the handles and the other underneath it, as if in fear of it opening despite the tape and the cake falling down. Mack places it on the kitchen counter and then takes the Prosecco bottle and the apple juice one, handing them to Bobbi, before the room goes back to neutrality and stillness once again.

Both comfort and consolation comes from an attentive study of details - the way the droplets of water gather on the bottle surfaces, the ripped off corner of the etiquette, the shadows that extend themselves in the room and disappear with every struck of lightning; all of them caught with the utmost care for they put everything into focus, making the moment appear as made of sharp edges, thus providing a reassuring and firm grip on reality. All of it makes Fitz feel less alone and isolated; pain, despite still being unspeakable, stops for a moment to be insular and he can stop thinking about where Jemma is if just for a moment.

Sometimes, little by little, the edges of here and now slip away and Fitz finds himself any place where Jemma is. His mind, or rather his imagination, starts to swirl and his thoughts are trapped in a whirlpool that traps him in a never ending chain of possibilities that all take him back three months prior, before and right after the activation of the monolith. And when taken back, he likes to linger on the moment with his hand on the doorknob - trembling fingers closing around it, the material cold under his sweaty palm, mentally thinking about what to say. He had found a restaurant. They would go for dinner. Jemma was still in the room. As long as the door was closed everything was possible and the same.

Time monomaniacally forbids seconds chances and yet Fitz can't or won't stop going back and think about history unfolding and all that could have been done differently. If only they had left the room together. If only the monolith had activated moments later or in a matter of hours - finding nothing and no one to drag along in its flow. If only Fitz had realized that there was no need to check out any options when they could have just gone to the take away at the end of the street and in either of their bunks - like in the old days, in their pyjamas, legs crossed and careful not to slip anything on the fresh bed duvets. No need to impress each other when all that was needed was to rebuild a friendship and make sure, though the other might doubt it, that they still cared for it. A conversation with no words that would come off as flippant and without any fear of doing or saying the wrong thing, heading it all towards an inevitable disaster.

The events of that evening lie in front of Fitz with the same realness and details as the ones he has witnessed since. Jemma standing next to the monolith with a box in her hands and him leaning against the glass case. What else? Fitz almost tripping and laughter bubbling up at the back of his throat - the first in a long time, with Jemma at least. What else? The elation so much in contrast with everything that then followed, and the thought at the back of his mind that it was happening, they were going back on track and memories no longer accused them. They were talking to each other with the same softness and sweetness of times long gone - no interruptions between them. They were themselves again but also changed and they had both accepted and welcomed it, they were their own person - full, well rounded - no longer two parts of a whole. What else? They had reached their worse but were getting better and had a lifetime to fix their own mistakes. What else? Walking towards his room, swaggering at the promise of what was to come. What else? Going back and finding the room empty, panic not yet settling in because it meant nothing. Jemma could be anywhere - the bathroom, the lab, Coulson's office, with Daisy. What else? He had waited, waited and waited - minutes feeling like weeks - and then he had checked for her, asking Daisy, anyone, if they had seen her. Of one thing Fitz had been proud of: through the desperate search, he had kept his calmness. He would not unravel, he would keep his mind clear and he'd find Jemma - after all, people couldn't just vanish.

But Jemma wasn't anywhere and her phone went directly to voicemail. _Jemma Simmons, leave a message._ One time, two times, three times - Fitz could recite it by heart with the same intonation as if to tease her. That's when panic had started to settle in, his mind filled with the thought of Jemma. Jemma, Jemma, Jemma. Out of breath, they had gone back to the room the monolith was kept in and it was in that moment that Fitz's mind finally registered the one detail that was off, the one he couldn't or wouldn't notice before. The glass door was open, still oscillating in its place. Moving creepily back and forth it was the only thing that was off in the stillness and immobility of the room.

"Happy birthday, Fitz!" Everyone says in unison.

"Thank you."

Mack attentively places the plate with the cake in front of Fitz and next to the pile of plates and forks. It's a casually symmetrical disposition on the blue tablecloth - two rounder forms, one bigger than the other, and the cutlery right next to them. It looked like a universe of its own.

Daisy fumbles, hands in the plastic bag, only to take out two candles; the numbers, carefully crafted, are in the shapes of his age and have white and green shapes all across them. She leans over the table to reach the cake and Hunter cracks a joke, telling her to put them in the wrong order for the mere fun of it. There's silence and then Fitz laughs, only for Hunter and Daisy to immediately follow, under the bewildered eyes of everyone else. But how to explain that although Hunter's joke bears nothing hilarious in it, there's a relief from knowing that some things are unchanged and they are laughing for the mere sake of it?

The smell of fresh strawberries and yogurt fills the air, filling everyone's nostrils, and the marmalade looks shiny under the light of the kitchen lamp. The circular disposition of strawberries and in the middle the two candles, looking awry and in precarious equilibrium.

Daisy's thumb on the sparkwheel, yellow sparks flying around. One, two, three times before the flame lights properly and, protecting it with her palm, she moves it towards the candles, slightly leaning the small plastic object towards the side. The wick of the first candle doesn't catch fire immediately, instead, the white strip of porous material burns and turns black - dangerously close to the base at the risk of letting the entire candle go to waste.  Then it lights properly and Daisy lights the second candle too. Now the two flames shine brightly and dance around in a mesmerizing way; blue, orange and yellow - the colours can be neatly distinguished as they fade into each other.

Bobbi's face is all shadows and so is Fitz's, the other's are too far away, but all watch attentively the scene with a hint of hesitation. Trepidation is palpable and there's an unmistakable solemnity that seems both exaggerated and apt - the arrival of a birthday, after everything that has happened, is glorious in its simplicity.

The wax is starting to drip, leaving a white trail on the striped surface, before falling down onto the small base that holds the candle. The wick, too upright, is causing the candle to burn out and be consumed quicker than it would otherwise, yet there's no need or want to fetch for a toothpick and fix it.

"You know the drill, mate, get ready to make a wish and then blow out the candles," says Hunter.

Fitz thinks about all the things he's wished for in the past: a puppy, a chocolate banana cake, a TARDIS, a friend. To be admitted into the Academy and finally be able to do something with his life, escape the small town he and his mother had moved to when Fitz was ten. For Jemma to be there with him and have someone to spent the day with now that his childhood friends had moved away and where on holiday. At some point he had even toyed with the idea of leaving s.h.i.e.l.d - an attempt to escape rather than a real desire on his part. How distant those days now appear to be as if belonging to someone else but then, as the novel says, the past is a foreign country - they do things differently there.

Lightning explodes and he turns around, his gaze quickly drifting over the empty chair; tears gather in his eyes - they prickle, burn, and blurry his sight, causing the room to look out of focus and watery. A wish, he has to come up with a wish before the silence and his pause last too long and the wax starts dripping from the base of the candle over the cake. Fitz tries to come up with one, but all he can do is staring at the chair back and forth, all over again; his mind, so filled with the thought of Jemma, prevents him from formulating any sort of coherent thought. He's frozen.

Jemma, whom they know nothing about.

Jemma, whose room lies untouched with dust gathering on every surface.

Jemma, whom he is bound to by a series of hypothesis - a string of conditionals between them.

There he is in the lab with Bobbi and there was a phantom version of Jemma somewhere in the universe working to find a solution and go back home. There's Jemma again, alone in a wasteland - not one thing around her. Here is Fitz eating lunch and Jemma does too and she's not alone (after all, Fitz thinks, the possibilities are endless and who knows what happened to her). There she is on a planet just like earth, air just as breathable. Every little thing sparks his imagination and some days, more than others, it's the one thing that keeps him going. But there's a downside to it all and that is the fear that by keep imagining what Jemma is doing, the conditionals will eventually wear off and fade into a semi-opaque screen that won't be able to hide their uncertainty any longer.

Indecision and lack of knowledge wear Fitz off too despite his attempts to prove everyone and himself included differently. All he can think about are Coulson's words that maybe they should take into consideration the idea to let Jemma and the thought of her go. What if the air wasn't breathable? What if she didn't survive being sucked in by the monolith? What if, what if, what if. He has thought about these options although not with the same frequency for hope is too much to allow it; Fitz even dreams about Jemma being dead, sees her lifeless body or gets her back only to have her swept away again - their hands not reaching each other or palms too sweaty for a tight grip - only to wake up with an accelerated heartbeat, cold sweat and drenched pajama, and tears in his eyes his mind foggy leaves him incapable of distinguishing truth from reality for seconds before relief washes over him, sending him back to his limbo of being in two places at once.

Fitz breathes in, lungs filling with air, and looks up; everyone looks back at him, piercing looks that make him feel row and exposed. He knows now what to wish for, the one thing he wants most in the world, and leans forward while rounding his lips.

 _Let Jemma be safe and let her come back,_ he thinks and blows the candles out.

 


End file.
